It was a result that many in Honduras—and across Latin America—had been anxiously awaiting for weeks. On December 24, 2025, electoral authorities finally declared Nasry Asfura, the conservative National Party candidate and former mayor of Tegucigalpa, the winner of Honduras’ presidential election. The announcement capped a tumultuous, razor-thin contest that has both reflected and accelerated a dramatic rightward shift sweeping the region.
The vote itself took place on November 30, 2025, but what should have been a straightforward tally quickly devolved into chaos. According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), Asfura edged out his main rival, Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, by a margin so slim it left the country on edge: 40.3% to 39.5%. The incumbent Liberty and Re-foundation Party (LIBRE), led by outgoing progressive President Xiomara Castro, finished a distant third with just 19.19% of the vote—a stinging rebuke for the leftist movement that had swept to power with promises of change just four years earlier.
The weeks that followed the election were filled with tension and uncertainty. As reported by BBC and NPR, technical glitches and maintenance outages—attributed by the CNE to a private company tasked with vote tabulation—caused repeated delays. At one point, the real-time results portal crashed, and about 15% of tally sheets had to be counted by hand. The sluggish pace of the count, which stretched on for more than three weeks, only intensified suspicions of fraud and fueled public protests. Thousands of supporters of the governing LIBRE party demonstrated in the capital, Tegucigalpa, demanding transparency and alleging electoral manipulation.
Throughout the ordeal, the role of the United States—and especially former President Donald Trump—loomed large. Trump had endorsed Asfura just days before the vote, declaring him “the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.” He even threatened to withdraw financial support from Honduras if Asfura’s slim lead was overturned and warned there would be “hell to pay.” According to Reuters and BBC, Trump’s endorsement was seen by many as a decisive intervention that may have tipped the scales in Asfura’s favor.
Opponents of Asfura, including Nasralla and President Castro, were quick to denounce the U.S. involvement. Nasralla, speaking at a press conference on December 24, insisted, “I will not accept a result built on omissions,” but also urged his supporters to remain calm. In a pointed message to Trump, he wrote, “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”
President Castro, who had been constitutionally barred from seeking a second term, described the situation as an “electoral coup” and accused Trump of interference. Yet, facing overwhelming evidence of defeat, she ultimately pledged to accept the results. As Eric Olson, an international observer with the Seattle International Foundation, told NPR, “Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we should tear up the elections and vote again. But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.”
International reactions poured in as soon as the results were announced. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was among the first to congratulate Asfura, posting on social media, “The people of Honduras have spoken: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president.” He added that Washington looked forward to working with the new administration “to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere” and urged “all parties to respect the confirmed results.” The European Union and right-leaning leaders across Latin America, notably Argentine President Javier Milei, echoed these sentiments. Milei hailed the outcome as “a victory against narcosocialism” and praised Hondurans for choosing “to end years of authoritarianism and decay.”
Asfura himself wasted little time in addressing the nation. In a video statement and a post on X (formerly Twitter), he declared, “Honduras: I am prepared to govern. I will not fail you.” He promised to be a unifying force and to “work tirelessly for Honduras.” Known for his pragmatic approach and popular infrastructure projects during his tenure as mayor, Asfura now faces the daunting task of leading a country deeply divided along political lines and still reeling from years of corruption, violence, and economic hardship.
The international dimension of the election didn’t end with Trump’s endorsement. Earlier in December, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez—a member of Asfura’s National Party—who had been serving a lengthy prison sentence in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges. The move drew sharp criticism from anti-corruption advocates and further complicated perceptions of U.S. involvement in Honduran affairs.
Asfura’s National Party, though conservative, is also staunchly pro-Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar spoke with Asfura on December 24, congratulating him and inviting him to visit Israel. “Honduras has a long history of friendship with the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” Saar said, referencing the 2021 decision by then-President Hernandez to move Honduras’ embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The Honduran result is part of a broader trend across Latin America, where a series of right-wing victories in 2025—including in Chile, Bolivia, and El Salvador—have reversed the so-called “Pink Tide” of left-wing governments that rose to prominence in the early 2020s. This rightward shift has coincided with a U.S. campaign of pressure against Venezuela’s leftist government, led by Nicolas Maduro, including an oil blockade and increased military presence in the region.
The election’s aftermath has left Honduras at a crossroads. While Asfura’s supporters celebrated in the streets, waving National Party flags and chanting slogans of unity, his opponents remain skeptical of the process that brought him to power. The Organization of American States (OAS) noted the election results but condemned the decision to announce them while 0.07% of votes were still uncounted, underscoring lingering doubts about the integrity of the process.
Yet, for now, the country is moving forward. Asfura’s challenge will be to bridge the deep divides exposed by this election and to deliver on his promise to not “let Honduras down.” Whether he can succeed where his predecessors struggled remains to be seen, but for Honduras and its neighbors, the stakes have rarely felt higher.
